The handbook genre is fraught with ambiguity as to its scope and function. The editors of this iteration of the Oxford Handbook series have helpfully demurred from offering anything encompassing or definitive. Rather, as the editors affirm in their introduction, the approach has been deliberately eclectic and suggestive but also valuable as a useful introduction and a resource for the traditional biblical scholar looking to expand curricular and research offerings.
Jane S. Webster's contribution, “Teaching Bible and American Popular Culture,” serves as a robust and informed plea to academics to engage popular culture in the teaching of the Bible, especially in so-called “core” or “general education” curricula. Webster's essay deserves to be placed “up front” given its clear-minded and pedagogically sound recommendations, though it sits in the ultimate division of the volume with other contributions on methodological issues in the field (Scott M. Langston, “The Ten Commandments, Postcards, and Methodological Issues and Opportunities”; Jane S. Webster, “Teaching Bible and American Popular Culture”; Robert Paul Seesengood, “Publishing in Bible and American Popular Culture”). Of special note for this reviewer is Webster's exhortation to make use of American popular culture as a vehicle to promote student-centered and transformative learning and engagement with ancient texts. She cites several helpful examples, such as Brent Straw's use of hip-hop's practice of sampling and remixing as a way of understanding source and redaction criticism, especially in the appropriation of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) myths in Genesis 1-11. Webster's admonishments and recommendations provide sound encouragement for scholars trained in more traditional approaches to biblical studies to open themselves up to the exploration of religion and popular culture. As such, scholars hesitant about taking on popular culture as a vehicle for exploring biblical texts would do well to start with Webster's essay.
The volume itself is organized around five major divisions: “Biblical Characters in Popular Culture,” “Biblical Themes in Popular Culture,” “Bible in Popular Culture Genres,” “‘Lived’/Performative Examples of the Bible and Popular Culture,” and “The State of the Field.”
In the first section of the handbook, as in every other section, there is no effort to be comprehensive, merely representative (Theresa M. Sanders, “The Impact of Adam and Eve on Popular Culture's Understandings of Women's Roles and Evolution”; Linda S. Schearing, “Moses and Popular Culture”; Caroline Blyth, “Nicolas Roeg's Retelling of Judges 16 in Samson and Delilah [1996]”; David M. Gunn, “David and Bathsheba in Children's Bibles and Adult Novels”; Katherine B. Low, “Queen Esther Imagined as a Disney Princess”; Eric Thurman, “Jesus and Postsoul Satire on the Small Screen”; Carol A. Hebron, “Judas in Films”). Among the wide range of offerings here, Eric Thurman's essay on Jesus stands out as representative of the quality and scope of the contributions in this section. Following a remarkably insightful overview of cultural portraits of Jesus, Thurman makes use of Aaron McGruder's short-lived and controversial Cartoon Network show, Black Jesus, to explore a satirical depiction of Jesus, one that overturns both the witness of popular images of Jesus as well as the hypermasculine dimensions of hip-hop culture that surrounds the main character.
The editors turn our attention to biblical themes in popular culture in the volume's third section (James F. McGrath, “Creation in American Popular Culture”; Terry R. Clark, “The Biblical Theme of Covenant and American Popular Culture from Colonial Times to Comic Books”; David G. Garber Jr., “Biblical Prophecy and Popular Fantasy and Science Fiction”; Shayna Sheinfeld, “Scenes from the End of the World in American Popular Culture”; Deane Galbraith, “Heaven after the Loss of Heaven”; Kathryn Gin Lum, “Hell and the Devil”; Tina Pippin, “The Rapture in American Imagination”; Greg Garrett, “The Afterlife in the Bible and Popular Culture”). The exploration of science fiction in conjunction with biblical material in several contributions is both notable and helpful. Of particular interest is David Garber's essay on prophecy and science fiction and the way he moves from The Matrix to Star Wars to Game of Thrones, but he really lands a punch as he turns to the intersection of the recent reboot of Battlestar Galactica and the chilling denunciation of Nineveh in chapter 3 of the prophet Nahum, which Garber then brings to bear on the issues of torture and dehumanization of enemies in the US invasion of Iraq.
The fourth and fifth divisions of the volume turn the reader's attention to the Bible in popular genres, including video games, graphic novels, and comics (Gregory Allen Robbins, “Genesis 1-11 in the Qatsi Film Trilogy”; Matthew A. Collins, “Television and the Bible in American Popular Culture”; Michael J. Gilmour, “The Bible in Pop and Rock Music”; Andrew Moss, “Improvising on the Canon through Jazz Music and Biblical Interpretation in American Popular Culture”; Elizabeth Rae Coody, “Nonbiblical Comics Engage the Bible”; Scott S. Elliott, “The Book of Jonah in Graphic Novel Adaptations of the Bible”; Leonard Greenspoon, “How American Newspaper Comic Strips Portray God, Angels, and Humans”; Katja Rakow, “The Material Dimension of the Bible from Print to Digital Text”; Rachel Wagner, “Apocalypse and Video Games”); and performative or lived examples of the Bible in popular culture (James S. Bielo, “Theme Parks”; Valarie H. Ziegler, “Touring Creation Museums, Featuring Dinosaurs in Eden, Philandering Aliens, and the Flood That Changed Molecular Reality!”; Dan W. Clanton Jr., “Crucifixions, Cosplay, and Participatory Fan Cultures”).
The volume's organization is not entirely intuitive, but each essay is tightly organized and following a regular and helpful structure with an introduction and overview of the topic, the exploration of concrete examples, conclusions, future prospects, and questions for research and study as well as a brief annotated bibliography. In this handbook, the editors and contributors have offered enormous service to the guild by providing an introduction to elements of American popular culture for traditionally trained biblical scholars of a certain age who might find themselves struggling with points of reference their younger students might appreciate. The volume is one of the best and most helpful examples of the handbook genre, and it is recommended as a rich and provocative resource for biblical scholars looking to expand their research and their curricular offerings for undergraduates.
